Unbreak My Heart

by Teresa Hill

  "So, your father thinks you're hopeless?"

  "Most of the time." He grinned back at her. "Although I'm trying to redeem myself with Wish."

  "What?"

  "The horse. His name is Three Wishes, but I call him Wish. And I guess I'm not really trying to redeem myself. I don't have him to please my father. I happen to think he's beautiful, and he's provided me with much more pleasure than a stock certificate or most any piece of property I own."

  "You own this horse?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  Allie felt so foolish. He owned the horse. A Thoroughbred. She didn't know anything about horses, except that they were surely very expensive. And he owned this one. Because Wish was beautiful and brought him pleasure. Allie might have bought a CD by one of her favorite musicians for the sheer pleasure of listening to it. Stephen, rather than a certificate of deposit or shares of stock had chosen to buy this horse, and obviously, she and this man were worlds apart.

  Stephen frowned. "I really didn't bring you here to try to impress you with what I come from, with what my family has."

  She forgot all about her own resolve to see him merely to find out what he knew about her sister, and asked, "Why did you bring me here?"

  "For about a dozen different reasons," he said.

  Damn. "That many?"

  He nodded. "I'm afraid nothing between us is going to be simple, Allie."

  No, she could see that it wouldn't be. Not if he'd turned her head so quickly yet again. And she simply couldn't leave it alone. She wanted to know what was happening between them.

  "Name one reason," she said. "Just one."

  "Because I don't want everything you see here to make you sad."

  She tried to ignore that little tugging in the region of her heart, the one that said she was touched by the fact that he cared about her state of mind.

  Helpless, she asked, "Another one?"

  "Because I wanted to be with you, outside of that house where your family fell apart, where maybe you could forget for a little while about all the bad things that happened here."

  "You did that," she told him, against her better judgment.

  He grinned down at her, a sleek, powerful, beautiful man leading an equally beautiful and no doubt amazingly expensive animal, a man who most certainly lived in a completely different world.

  Allie closed her eyes, ignoring the gap between them and all the doubts she had about him. Mesmerized, she said, "That's two reasons."

  "Because this is one of the most beautiful places I know, and I wanted to share it with you."

  Her heart gave another little lurch. She didn't think any man had ever found beauty in the world that he simply had to show her.

  "I could help you, Allie," he said. "If you could trust me. Just a little."

  "I'm not very good at that," she confessed, feeling totally inadequate at the moment. A part of her thought she should be able to simply open her mouth and let the words come tumbling out, telling him all her doubts, all her fears, all her inadequacies. Maybe other women could ignore what she thought was perfectly good sense and reason and a caution she was entitled to with him or with any man she'd known for so little time, and just trust. She'd never given her trust easily. Life had taught her not to. So had he.

  "Tell me, Allie. Tell me why."

  "It's just the way I am, the way I've always been. In my house, we didn't talk about the bad things. We closed our eyes and hoped they'd go away. We became quite adept at taking bad things and shoving them into little boxes in our heads and pounding the lids on tightly. Can you even begin to understand that?"

  "Better than you know," he said.

  "Really? I can't imagine anything truly bad ever happening to you."

  "You'd be wrong," he insisted.

  "My sister died, and I never saw my father again," she said softly, sadly. "That kind of bad?"

  He frowned. "How is it that every conversation we have ends with you digging something out of me that I never tell anyone?"

  No, that was what he did to her. "What have you told me that you never tell anyone? About being lonely?"

  Grim-faced, he said, "Yes."

  "I didn't believe you at the time."

  He swore softly and shook his head.

  "I'm sorry. I just didn't. I can't imagine any man like you ever being lonely."

  "Did you think you'd cornered the market on that? Did you think you were the only one?"

  She could scarcely breathe all of a sudden, and she thought that whatever she did to him, he did the same thing in return. She'd told him things she'd never told anyone. About the boxes full of hurt stashed in the comers of her mind.

  "Sometimes I do," she said. "Sometimes I think I'm the loneliest person in the world."

  "God," he said, taking her by the arms and turning her to face him. "Don't."

  She dipped her head. It settled against his chest, and she decided this was why she didn't have conversations like this. Because it hurt to put her emotions out here for someone else to see. This was why people held things deep inside.

  "More than you wanted to know?" she asked, afraid she'd gone too far, that these were indeed feelings too raw to share with anyone.

  "No. That's not it at all. I don't want you to feel like that, Allie. God, I hate the thought of that."

  "And your family?" she asked, wanting to believe he wasn't simply saying what he thought she wanted to hear. "What happened to you that was so bad?"

  "My brother despises me—a feeling that's mutual—and my father was here, physically at least, but I've been a disappointment to him his entire life. He barely tolerates me. He's a lousy father and husband who thinks he's somehow entitled to do exactly as he pleases because his last name is Whittaker. He thinks we're as good as royalty in Kentucky, and he treats most people that way," he said. "Believe me, I may have grown up in privileged surroundings, but my life hasn't been without its little problems."

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to drag it out of you that way."

  He waved off her apology, as if it had been nothing, what she'd pushed him into admitting.

  They walked back to the barn in silence. He turned the horse over to a waiting groom, and after talking with the man for a few moments, led Allie back to his vehicle. He opened her door. She stepped forward to get in, but he stopped her and turned her around, pinning her between him and the door.

  "Look beneath the surface, Allie," he said. "Look past the material things. You and I are not that different."

  He lowered his mouth to hers. Lips smooth and warm and knowing settled over hers. She grabbed onto his shirt and held him there against her, not thinking of anything but the heat of his body and the way he smelled, so fresh and clean, the way he tasted, the way her knees threatened to buckle.

  She knew he couldn't possibly want her. No man had ever truly wanted her. But there it was, that intriguing tug of awareness, that huge pool of need rising up inside of her. He was so big, so solid, and she felt absolutely safe with him and at the same time like they'd stepped off a skyscraper and found nothing but air beneath their feet. It was such a rush. So very unexpected and so powerful, it scared her. And thrilled her.

  She could barely breathe by the time he lifted his head, and she noted with satisfaction that his shoulders rose and fell with every breath he took. He was not unaffected. This kiss, this wild need rushing between them, this at least was real.

  Still, as confusing and exhilarating as it was, she had to remember why she was here. She had to remember he said her sister's name with what sounded like a world of pain.

  "I came here to do something with the house and find out why my family fell apart," she protested. "I didn't come here looking for anything like this."

  "Neither did I. Are we supposed to ignore it, just because it surprised us? Or because we didn't go looking for it?"

  "I don't know."

  "Give me a chance," he said in a way that made her want to give him anything, absolutely anything at
all.

  "I feel like it's going to be all I can do just to stay sane long enough to do what I came here for."

  "Then I'll help you. Let me help."

  She sighed, thinking it was much too difficult to refuse him and not liking the realization at all.

  "Allie, I know these people. I know this town. I can make this easier for you."

  Common sense waged a small war inside her, going up against age-old habits of trusting no one, depending on no one. When he told her things like he had this morning, she felt like they were two kindred spirits, two lost souls. Playing it safe, pushing him away seemed like an awful price to pay for her own innate cautiousness.

  A woman had to take a risk at some point, Allie reasoned. Was she going to be alone her entire life? Scared and stubborn and sure that she knew what was best for herself?

  And honestly, they weren't talking about anything except spending a bit of time together, him helping her sort through the mess of her past. She wasn't promising him any more than that, and she'd already agreed she should see him, to find out what he knew about her sister. Not to kiss him. Not to fall for him. To find out what he knew about Megan.

  "All right," she said.

  "Good." He grinned at her, lightly touching his mouth to hers.

  The sun had risen behind him, and it hurt just to look at him this way.

  Ah, damn, she thought. She was positively dizzy with the speed at which things were moving between them. When he took her into his arms, she had trouble remembering her own name, much less her sister's.

  She looked up over his shoulder and saw his world, his life. She could never belong here, and honestly, all she'd ever wanted was a place to belong and people around her who loved her and never left her.

  Which meant it was ridiculous to be here with him.

  She couldn't imagine ever belonging to him, couldn't imagine him ever being the man who would love her and never leave her.

  But he'd said they weren't so very different, and she wondered—foolishly no doubt—if he could be looking for the same thing.

  Chapter 5

  Stephen delivered her to her front door and asked, "What are you going to do with your day?"

  "Finish packing up the kitchen, I hope," she said, a bit of her equilibrium restored now that he was no longer touching her. "Sort through things to give away, things to keep. Clean. See if anything needs to be repaired."

  "So you can put the house on the market?"

  "I have to," she said. "I hate admitting it, but the house is much too big for one person and much too expensive for me."

  And she felt too much here. There were too many memories, memories that hurt. It seemed odd to abandon the house—the only tie to her past—but she didn't see how she could keep it, either. What in the world would she do with a house that size? What could anyone?

  "It's a big job for one person," Stephen said. "There are people who could take care of this for you. They could pack up the whole house."

  "I have to do it. My father's things are still there. Probably my things, my mother's, even Megan's. I may find things that tell me why she left." Allie looked up to find Stephen frowning. "You still don't think I should do this?"

  "I don't see the purpose."

  "There may have been things that happened that I never knew about."

  "What if there were? What's going to change by you knowing?"

  "I'm going to change," she said, thinking that maybe it wasn't about her sister at all. Maybe it was about her. "I'm haunted by it. I feel like I have this big black void in my soul, and as hard as I've tried, I can't escape it. I can't get on with anything in my life until I understand this. Something was going on here that was so bad, my sister thought her only option was to run away, and she died because of that. My mother and I ran away, too. My father let her take me from this house, and he didn't try to stop her. He never even came to see me again. It was like I was dead to him, too. And this is my last chance to understand it all. There's nothing left of my family, no one to even ask. There's nothing but this house. And I think all the answers are here. I just have to find them."

  He wasn't convinced. She could tell. But he didn't say anything else, just stood there with her hands in his.

  "Haven't you ever had something that just wouldn't let go of you?" she tried. "Something you couldn't escape no matter how hard you tried?"

  "No."

  "Then you've been lucky."

  "No," he insisted. "I've just learned to let go of certain things."

  "How do you let go?"

  "You put it out of your mind. You concentrate on the present, on living your life to please yourself. Not on the past. Not on your mistakes, not on your regrets or all the things you wish you could change."

  "I can't see you ever making a mistake like the ones I've made. You're so sure of yourself, so certain you know what you want and how to get it."

  "What do you want, Allie? For you? For your life? Because that's how you get it. You just have to figure out what you want and make it happen."

  "You make it sound easy."

  "Easier than beating yourself up over all the things you wish you'd done differently. Don't get so caught up in the past that you forget about today, about everything that's ahead of you."

  "To me, all of this is about moving on. I feel like I've been stuck, like I couldn't break free, because of everything that happened here. I was just so afraid."

  "Afraid of what?"

  "I don't know. I don't like being in this house—"

  "Allie, has something happened? Something that frightened you?"

  "No. It's just the memories... I never remembered much about this place. It was all so hazy before, like looking through fog. But it's clearer now. Things are coming back to me in bits and pieces..." She sighed, still having trouble understanding what she saw, what it meant. "I saw my sister this morning."

  "What?"

  "I meant... I remembered something. At least I think it happened, and it's a memory. But I can't be sure," Allie said. "I was looking at the piano one minute, and the next, it was like I could see her sitting there at the piano."

  "She used to play, didn't she?"

  "We both did. But, Stephen, she had bruises on her arms. Here." Allie put her hand on his upper arm. "Like someone grabbed her and wouldn't let her go."

  "Did you ever see her with bruises?"

  "I saw her sitting at the piano so many times. But I didn't remember anything about bruises. Not before today," she said. "It was the oddest thing. Like she was there in my mind for a reason. So I would see the bruises. It made me wonder if I know everything. If it's locked inside of me somewhere, and I just had to come here for all the memories to come back."

  "God, Allie." He held onto her for a moment, his touch gentle and reassuring, not the kind that would ever leave marks on a woman. "This is going to be hell for you. You know that, don't you?"

  "Maybe. But you said I had to move on, and this is the only way I know to do it. It's going to work, too. Being here has been good for me already. I know now that I could never live in this house. It's too full of memories."

  It wasn't going to be the home she'd always longed for, not when it was full of such sorrow. And there was no reason to be upset about that. She'd known all along she wouldn't be able to keep the house, although she did hope that someone would find happiness there someday.

  "Which means, I have to figure out what to do with it," she said.

  "If you mean that..." Stephen stared down at her, hesitating. "If that's what you really want, I'm willing to buy the house from you."

  "You want to live here?"

  "I'm not sure. You said yourself, it's too big for one person. But I'd love to be able to restore it. It's one of the most beautiful houses in town."

  She was tempted. It would be nice for just one little part of this to be easy. She could just sell it to him and be done with it. "I'll think about it."

  "Take your time," he said easily. "You're plann
ing to be here for a while?"

  "A few weeks, maybe a month," she said.

  "You don't have to be back in Connecticut?"

  "I don't have to be anywhere." She was as rootless as a person could be.

  Stephen squeezed her hand reassuringly, and she stared up at the house. Perhaps for the first time she thought about truly giving up this last link to her former life, to her family. There was truly nothing left except her and a few faint memories, the possessions of theirs still to be found within the walls and the house itself.

  Just a house, she'd told herself. But it wasn't, of course. As uncomfortable as she felt here, it was hard to imagine it belonging to someone else. She could sell it to Stephen, and he'd turn it into an even more beautiful place, but in the process, he'd wipe the slate clean. She might not even recognize it anymore, once he was done restoring it to its original beauty.

  It would no longer exist except in the faint traces of her memory. But she couldn't hang onto it. She didn't have to nm the numbers to know. This was simply beyond her means.

  She was letting her emotions simply overwhelm her—to be even thinking of keeping it, trying to salvage something of her childhood, of her family, that was simply unsalvageable. Maybe she thought as long as the house was here, there was something of them all left. Maybe her sudden panic over the loss of the house was simply her inability to acknowledge that for all intents and purposes, her family had simply ceased to exist.

  Which was foolish. They had lived and breathed within these walls. She would never forget them. Obviously she was having trouble letting go now because she was still trying to make sense of the losses they'd suffered.

  It all seemed so wretchedly pointless. That they were born and lived, and died. All of them but her. Where was the logic in that? Had they merely been here to suffer? To have so many regrets? Or had they simply made all the wrong decisions? Taken all the wrong paths.

  It seemed there had to be a lesson learned, a wrong to right. As if something had to come of all the tragedy. They talked about that at the runaway shelter in Connecticut. Allie happened to be there one day when a group-counseling session was starting, and she simply hadn't been able to pull herself away. They talked about refusing to give the things in the past the power to ruin the present. About mistakes, disappointments, and hurts making people stronger, smarter, more determined.